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...The response to this belief was public and private, during a campaign that lasted only two months, from September to November. Yet feelings were so strong that they swirled into a hurricane of abuse, a crescendo of fear and hate blasting through eight weeks. The school board of Daytona Beach, Fla., sent a note home with every student. It read simply: “We must prevent the election of Alfred E. Smith to the Presidency. If he is elected President, you will not be allowed to have or read a Bible.” Fliers informed voters that if Smith took the White House, all Protestant marriages would be annulled, their offspring rendered illegitimate on the spot.
Opponents blanketed the country with photos of the recently completed Holland Tunnel, the caption stating that this was the secret passage being built between Rome and Washington, to transport the pope to his new abode. Countless copies of a small cartoon appeared on lampposts and mailboxes everywhere. Titled “Cabinet Meeting — If Al Were President,” it showed the cabinet room, with the pope seated at the head of the table, surrounded by priests and bishops. Over in the corner was Al Smith, dressed in a bellboy’s uniform, carrying a serving platter, on top of which was a jug of whiskey. Summing up, the minister of the largest Baptist congregation in Oklahoma City announced, “If you vote for Al Smith you’re voting against Christ and you’ll all be damned.”
The Ku Klux Klan became actively involved in preventing a Catholic from ever getting near the White House, going all out to defeat Smith. One Klan leader mailed thousands of postcards after Democrats nominated the New Yorker, stating firmly, “We now face the darkest hour in American history. In a convention ruled by political Romanism, anti-Christ has won.” A Klan colleague in remote North Manchester, Ind., warned his audience, in booming tones, of the imminent arrival of the pope: “He may even be on the northbound train tomorrow! He may! He may! Be warned! America is for Americans! Watch the trains!” When I interviewed Hugh L. Carey, only the second Roman Catholic governor of New York, for my Smith biography, he remembered Klan parades in Hicksville when he was 9 years old and how frightened he was, because “there was a real anti-Catholic sentiment.”
Read the rest
here.
America's always been a little insane, hasn't it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting side notes:
ReplyDelete1. The Klan was (and is) thoroughly masonic. Worth noting b/c of the Klan vitriol in those letters in light of the always simmering tension between them and the K of C.
2. The Mormon Church was founded as the fount of "true masonry." Joseph Smith was assassinated by his fellow masons for giving away too many secrets.
Never seems to be any in-depth articles written about presidential candidates and their ties to masonic or quasi-masonic secret societies. Last time I remember W just refusing to comment on Russert's question about Skull and Bones - end of story.
America's always been a little insane, hasn't it.
ReplyDeleteSadly, yes. A time-limited, Jacobin experiment, and that time is running out.
In America's defense, there is an institutional memory of Catholic hierarchs and Catholic aristocracy engaged in constant, fratricidal intrigue and warfare over the centuries.
Anti Gnostic, The Orthodox didn't do anything like that over the years.
ReplyDeleteGreat argument, Jason. "The Orthodox did it too!" And great job providing an answer to a question nobody asked.
ReplyDeleteFYI -
ReplyDeleteThe Jason that posted at 12:38PM is not me. I'm not the smartest person in the world but I'll always avoid making infantile remarks.
Sincerely
Jason 6:44AM